Lindsey Vonn almost had her leg amputated after her horror crash at the Winter Olympics

The 41-year-old ski racer was airlifted to hospital after she fell on the slopes during the women's downhill final at the Milan-Cortina Games in Italy on February 8 and she subsequently underwent four surgeries to repair a complex tibia fracture in her left leg - and Lindsey has now revealed she almost lost the limb due to complication and she's credited orthopedic surgeon Dr Tom Hackett, who works with Team USA, with saving her leg.

In a post on Instagram, Lindsey explained: "I had a complex tibia fracture, I also fractured my fibia head and the reason it was so complex was because I had compartment syndrome.

"Compartment syndrome is when you have so much trauma to one area that there is too much blood and it gets stuck. It basically crushes everything - muscles, nerves, tendons, it dies.

"Dr Tom Hackett saved my leg from being amputated. He did what is called a fasciotomy, he cut open both sides of my leg and let it breathe and he saved me.

"It will take around a year for all of the bones to heal and then I will decide if I want to take out all the metal or not, and then go back into surgery and finally fix my ACL. Life is life, we have to take the punches as they come."

The athlete competed in Milan despite tearing her ACL ( anterior cruciate knee ligament) shortly before the Games and she's convinced the injury ultimately helped her because it meant her doctor was on stand-by when she crashed.

She added: "If I hadn't torn my ACL, which I would have done anyways in this crash, Doctor Tom Hackett wouldn't have been there. He wouldn't have been able to save my leg.

"He saved my leg from being amputated. I always talk about everything happening for a reason ... I feel very lucky and grateful for him, for this six-hour surgery."

Lindsey - who has since returned to the US - went on to explain her recovery is taking a long time and she's still getting around using a wheelchair but she hopes to be able to transfer to crutches soon.

She explained: "I was in the hospital a little longer than I hoped because I had very low haemoglobin from the blood loss from all the surgeries.

"I was really struggling, the pain was a little bit out of control and I had to have a blood transfusion.

"That helped me a lot and I turned the corner and now I am out. I am in a wheelchair right now, I am very much immobile and I will be in a wheelchair for a while because I also broke my right ankle.

"I hope I can be on crutches in a little bit but we will see."


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